Blue Dog Dems: what are they good for?

Digby has a good statement of the progressive Democratic position against the Blue Dogs in Using The Party As A Fire Hydrant Hullabaloo 11/03/2010

I think when you run against your own party in this age of polarization you are begging the electorate to vote for your opponent. We aren't in an age of ticket splitting and the parties are breaking pretty clearly along ideological lines (even if the Democrats haven't figured that out yet.) They do have the money chase in common, but the next few years are going to see a split there as well, with one party coming up with a convincing rationale for why they are a party of whores and the other one being forced by the structural nature of parliamentary politics to take the other side. (I'm not entirely convinced at this moment that it will break the way we might assume.) In any case, if you don't clearly identify with the party to which you ostensibly belong, people will figure there must be something shifty about you. When you see the two national parties in pitched battle all the time, you are right to wonder why in the world you should continue to support someone who can't --- even if they wanted to --- adequately represent your interests.

This new era is going to require more partisan cohesion to get anything done and to stop the things the Party doesn't want done. This seems like a good thing to me. Fewer Blue Dogs means fewer saboteurs within the party creating the illusion that there is a progressive governing majority. And that means that if the Republicans want to pass their destructive agenda, they will have to take sole responsibility for it instead of passing it under the rubric of bipartisanship --- or worse as Democratic policies --- and then blaming the Democrats when their policies don't work. Responsibility/accountability are much clearer when the parties are philosophically distinct. [my emphasis]

Tags: blue dog democrats, democratic party

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